Cheap Android Phones Found Guilty Of Sending Personal Data To China

Think twice before buying some cheap Chinese smartphone

The latest report by New York Times claims that cheap Android phones are sending private data to a Chinese server. This report has been established by Kryptowire which is a famous security firm. The firm caught malicious software running on cheap Chinese Phones.

Chinese Phones made by ZTE and Huawei were guilty of having the software on them. The software was sending essential personal data such as message logs, location and call details. The collected data was being sent to an unauthorized server within the Chinese border.

This news may cause you to feel suspicious in your own way but in reality things aren’t so nefarious at all. The software which is responsible for collecting this data has been manufactured by a Chinese firm known as Shanghai Adups technology Company.

The company’s representative made it very clear that the data collection is not in any way connected to the Chinese government and described the incident to be ‘ a private company that made a mistake’. This explanation isn’t satisfactory at all.

We still do not know many phones carry this data collection software. A US phone company which rebrands Chinese phones estimates the number to be 120,000. The situation may not be alarming for some but one thing is for moves are being made to mend the situation which includes updating effected phones.

Update:

We received an official statement from ZTE USA regarding this report: “We confirm that no ZTE devices in the U.S. have ever had the Adups software cited in recent news reports installed on them, and will not. ZTE always makes security and privacy a top priority for our customers. We will continue to ensure customer privacy and information remain protected.”

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